Circuit boards with multiple Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuit chips are called Multi-Chip Modules (MCM). Performance of an MCM may be affected at least in part by the length of interconnections between chips. The longer the distance of an interconnection between chips, the greater the time for a signal to be transmitted from one chip to another chip. Hence, the longer the distance of an interconnection between chips, the lower the processing speed of the MCM.
In an MCM, each chip may be interconnected with another adjacent or diagonal chip within the substrate. The interconnection between adjacent chips may commonly be referred to as an “orthogonal” interconnection. The interconnection between chips diagonal to one another may commonly be referred to as a “diagonal” interconnection. Typically, the orthogonal interconnections are shorter in distance than the diagonal interconnections. In fact, the diagonal interconnections may be forty percent (40%) longer than orthogonal interconnections.
If the length of the longest diagonal interconnection can be made with a length no longer than the length of the longest orthogonal interconnection, the performance of the MCM may be improved. That is, by minimizing the length of the longest diagonal interconnection to be substantially the same length as the length of the longest orthogonal interconnection, the performance of the MCM may be improved by improving the processing speed of the MCM.
It would therefore be desirable to minimize the length of the longest diagonal interconnection to be substantially the same length as the length of the longest orthogonal interconnection in a multi-chip module in order to improve the performance of the multi-chip module.